ACADEMIA Letters

Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating

Sustainability in Urban City Planning
Maryam Kouhirostami, M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management,
College of Design Construction and Planning, University of Florida
Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction
Management, College of Design Construction and Planning, University of Florida

1. Introduction
More than 50% of the world’s population is living in cities [1]. Thus, cities are the most sig-
nificant energy users in the world. At least 60 to 80 percent of the world’s energy consumption
is in the urban environment [2]. Therefore, energy-consuming such as fuel energy and elec-
tricity consumption can produce heat, and this effect would enhance the temperature of cities,
which causes local or even global warming. In addition, using huge scale glazing of building
surfaces, wide surfaces of asphalt all over the cities, and very low areas of vegetation would
create a warmer area than suburbs. That is why bringing sustainability to the cities is one of
the most important actions that need to be considered by urbanism.

2. Literature Review
In 1810, Urban Heat Island (UHI) concept was introduced by Luke Howard, a British scien-
tist, as a phenomenon in metropolises, such as London [3]. Rapid city development, which is
caused by industrialization, has a substantial negative effect on the urban environment. Cities’
new conditions caused urban planners to consider the root of problems, such as high density
and pollution. After defining the outlines of these problems in developed cities, researchers

Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
1
focused on finding the solutions [4]. Ebenezer Howard was one of the pioneers in Garden
Cities Theory. He suggested vegetation and planting not only as a place for people scaping,
but also as a means to create a clean and healthy environment [5]. It was the first step to
reducing UHI temperature, especially in dense neighborhoods. Then, many countries world-
wide established their rules and strategies to improve the decision-making process to design
sustainable and well-developed cities.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined UHI and proposed
strategies to reduce UHI temperature. The EPA defines UHI as an area in a city that is warmer
than its neighboring countryside (Figure 1). 1.8-5.4°F would be the appropriate differences
for the annual average air temperature between an urban area and its surroundings [6]. The
EPA has individual and urban strategies for mitigating the UHI effect. Individual strategies
are related to houses and residential complexes; while urban strategies are more about com-
prehensive urban planning. Individual or household activities include using green roofs, veg-
etating courtyards, reducing waste, using energy-efficient applications, sustainable building
materials, increasing shades around homes, and installing cool roofs. Similar strategies are
helpful for municipalities or governments to apply in cities. In addition, they can apply cool
street pavements to prevent the UHI effect. In 2009, Rizwan presented UHI mitigation tools,
strategies, methodologies, and measures [7, 8, & 9].

Figure 1. Urban Heat Island: Study on the Application of Ventilation Corridor Planning in
Urban New Area: A Case Study of Xixian New Area.” Su, et al. P: 2.

In 2005, Solecki tried to analyze the role of urban vegetation and reflective roofs on reduc-
ing UHI utilizing the CITYgreen application. He found that urban vegetation has a significant
effect on mitigating UHI; however, he believed high-density neighborhoods have limited open
spaces for vegetation, and those neighborhoods have low open spaces for a wind flow [15]. In
2015, O’Malley used ENVI-met to analyze various mitigation strategies, such as vegetation
and water surface on mitigation UHI. He used the resiliency term in his research and consid-
ered it as a measurement tool for measuring the effectiveness of those strategies. He provided

Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
2
some practical suggestions to enhance the resiliency of those strategies to make them more
effective for cities and people [11].
Other scholars looked at, Air Ventilation Assessment (AVA ), which is the rule for sus-
tainable urban planning that was established in 2005 by the Office of the Chief Secretary for
Administration. Some researchers reported the scientific process of the AVA system in his
research to clarify this technical method for urban planners [17]. Another effective way for
mitigating the UHI effect in metropolitan areas is Urban Ventilation Corridor (UVC). This
technique uses natural ventilation in an urban context by pre-designing paths to reduce the
temperature of UHI. However, applying UVC in cities is not effective without considering the
Cold Island effect around the cities [10], knowing that a Cold Island is defined as an area with
low temperature because of a near water body, vegetation area, or both.

3. Discussing UVC techniques

Most studies in UHI mitigation and UVC simulation focus on high-density neighborhood or
parallel street urban configuration with equal street width. Ng argues that connecting low-
density and low-roughness areas in a city would create a path to direct wind through the city.
He believed that the UVC phenomenon has a significant effect on reducing urban temperature
[16]. Recently, researchers compared various urban configurations and densities to find the
most accurate result related to each methodology and the best urban configuration for applying
UVC. For instance, Ramponi chose parallel street configurations with various street widths to
simulate airflow at the pedestrian level. The results show that main streets are efficient for
applying UVC when wind directions are perpendicular to the main roads. In other words, par-
allel wind direction to the main streets in higher-level reduces the airflow rate at the pedestrian
level in narrow streets. That study was a comparison of different wind directions in different
urban configurations [12]. Another study compared various urban densities to find the most
reliable Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulation result. Shirzadi used simulations to
analyze cross-ventilation in a city, in 2018. The study demonstrates that CFD simulation and
the RANS model are accurate for urban areas with densities less than 0.2 (CA=0.2) (Figure
2). To simulate an urban area with a higher density, it is necessary to develop CFD software
[13]. The result is important for finding the suitable neighborhood with appropriate density
to be simulated with CFD.

Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
3
Figure 2. Study Results: Shirzadi, Naghashzadegan, and A. Mirzaei. “Improving the CFD
Modelling of Cross-ventilation in Highly-packed Urban Areas.” Sustainable Cities and Soci-
ety 37 (2018): 451-65.

In 2019, He studied the effect of road angle and pattern on the air velocity and airflow
direction in a high-density neighborhood (Figure 3). He realized that road pattern in a city
like New York has a massive effect on directing air to the urban context. He used numerical
and experimental methods for his study and compared the results to show the accuracy of the
numerical analysis. His models considered four types of four-way roads with various patterns
from 45 to 90 angles. The study results show that the road direction should be close to the
natural air direction to simplify the airflow in the context. He used CFD simulation for this
study, and it is one of the most recent CFD simulations for UVC.

4. Summary
The literature shows the importance of UHI mitigation in controlling the climate change effect,
especially for metropolitans [14]. Nevertheless, there are many gaps in the field that need to
go under consideration and research. For example, UVC and the effect of road pattern and
angle is a relatively new field of study that has a great potential to expand, especially when
considering different urban contexts in a different culture.

Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
4
Figure 3. Study Method: He, Tablada, and Wong. “A Parametric Study of Angular Road
Patterns on Pedestrian Ventilation in High-density Urban Areas.” Building and Environment
151 (2019): 251-67.

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Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
5
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Academia Letters, November 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf, eng.amer_hamad@live.com

Citation: Kouhirostami, M., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. (2021). Reducing Urban Thermal Discomfort by Integrating
Sustainability in Urban City Planning. Academia Letters, Article 4041.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4041.
6